How Africa Works is the latest book by the excellent writer Joe Studwell, whose famous book How Asia Works is probably the best on Asian development that I've read. There is a shortage of good books on African economic development so this is a welcome addition to the genre.

What interested me is how complementary, opposed or supportive, it might be to the themes I focused on, in The Time Travelling Economist (2022). This argued that escaping poverty required the pre-condition of adult literacy, electricity (plentiful, reliable and cheap) and this relied on the surprisingly powerful impact of the double demographic dividend, which gets expressed by lower interest rates that lets countries industrialise.

Unfortunately, The Time Travelling Economist was not reviewed as widely as How Africa Works (see recent articles in the WSJ and the FT), and so does not show up in the references in How Africa Works.

Despite that, How Africa Works does emphasise the importance of the double demographic dividend and falling fertility rates and electricity gets mentioned numerous times too. The improvement in human capital in recent generations is emphasized regularly too, and he (rightly in my view) notes the importance of foreign aid in helping drive that improvement. There's a lot I agree with in this book.

Studwell also pays more attention than I do to the quality of government and the policies they enact. My view is that most double demographic dividend governments look fairly good, and most pre-double demographic dividend governments find it very hard to look good. Life is easier for those who have money, and harder for those who don't, because they have to make tough choices and can’t meet all the needs of their people.

He focuses much more than I do on agriculture and what are the best policies to help that sector. My view is that when money is plentiful, inputs like fertiliser or tractors are more affordable and agricultural yields will jump. He, probably rightly points out that government policies can have a big impact too. Again these are welcome additions to the development debate.

We do differ in some areas, including education. He argues that the Philippines has lagged others in Asia, despite good literacy, which was true until the fertility rate fell. Now with the double demographic dividend in full flow, the Philippines has averaged 5% growth for a generation, the same as Indonesia, and only marginally behind India and Vietnam on 6%. My view is that without 70-80% adult literacy (in any language), industrialisation is impossible, and always has been, and 40% or less makes growth nigh on impossible. See the Sahel or Afghanistan for recent supportive evidence.

When focusing on the four countries he chooses, he doesn't focus much on the differing adult literacy rates of Mauritius (roughly 50% in 1950) and Ethiopia (roughly 50% now). I argue this difference, and Mauritius sub-3 fertility rate since 1979 (Ethiopia will get there in 2038), are the best explanations of why Mauritius exported $1,836 of goods in 2024 while Ethiopia exported $35.

My view is that literacy and the double demographic dividend explains why Morocco now exports $1,178 in 2024 of goods per capita, produced 1 million cars in 2025 (50% higher than second placed South Africa) and more cars per capita than France. It is leading Africa’s second industrialisation wave.

Rwanda is another country he focuses on. It will wait until 2039 before its fertility rate drops below 3, which is why its exports (probably including gold re-exports) were only $222 in 2024. Like Studwell who cites the “Singapore in Africa” line that I first wrote about in 2011, services may be a better route for Rwanda to boost foreign exchange revenues.

I did not focus on Botswana which was blessed with big diamond mines and few people. He does, and argues it could have done more with this inheritance. Perhaps so, given that diamonds did provide the savings that could compensate for a high fertility rate. Fortunately for Botswana, its fertility rate has now dropped below 3, so local deposits can grow. This is essential, as lab-grown Chinese demands are a major reason why Botswana’s exports per capita have just halved from $3,000 in 2022 to $1,500 in 2024, and the outlook for the sector is bleak. Some of the diversification Studwell wants to see is now a fundamental need for Botswana.

One further area of disagreement is on population density. The underlying premise makes sense. Dense populations are more efficiently served by government infrastructure, so cities are cheaper to run, and Singapore or Hong Kong’s success are obvious examples of this. However, The Time Travelling Economist points out that big cities that can’t afford much infrastructure will often be home to slums. Countries before the double demographic dividend have big cities, but little wealth. Areas of Nairobi, Lagos and Kinshasa are all prime examples today. Brazil and India had many such examples in the past. Studwell does note the higher cost of Lagos transport (because it’s not dense enough he argues) but I’d argue it’s the lack of savings in Nigeria which means a cheaper mass transit system doesn’t already serve most of the 20 milllion + population.

I should do more work on this because others have cited low population density as a reason why Latin America has not thrived as Asia has (my view is Asia compressed its demographic dividend, so grew faster). But a brief look shows Nigeria and Germany have the same population density, but quite different incomes, and Malawi is far more densely populated than Scandinavia or Canada. I’m sceptical this is so important. My premise is lower density Africa in the past lacked the human capital to thrive as countries like New Zealand have, and it was education, not density that was most important.

Overall this is, like How Asia Works, a book that has been thought provoking, and is again beautifully written. But it fails to challenge the thesis of The TIme Travelling Economist that for the Asian model to succeed in Africa, we have to see the double demographic dividend first. Without it, countries that try the Ethiopian model will be vulnerable to default because they risk running out of local savings to industrialise. This of course has happened in Ethiopia, is the subject of a whole chapter in The Time Travelling Economist, but default doesn’t get a mention in How Africa Works.

Lastly, and encouragingly, Studwell cites an African Development Bank study which argues Africa is on course to grow to China’s current size by 2060. This is the same conclusion as published in The Time Travelling Economist in 2022. We come from different directions, and focus on different areas, but end up with the same conclusion. Hopefully we’re both right.

Some comparisons of the text are available on this thread: x.com/CharlieTTEcon/sta…